Things Change in the Blink of an Eye

Most people here have dogs, or two, or three. I used to feel bad for the neighbors when ours were puppies and would bark, a lot. Actually, they still do; at the mail truck, UPS, meter reader, strangers. Now I look around and there is no one there to hear them.
Some of the lots in our neighborhood are quite large. More than two hundred feet wide and just as deep. In a matter of weeks our street has become near empty of occupants. One couple drives a long distance truck, but others are not coming back at all. One went up to Oregon, one went Higher still.
Most likely we will see a change. Maybe surviving families will move into the now empty houses and spread out on the spacious properties. Maybe we will see a split of the land, or the now modest homes remodeled.
Well, in any case I think this is a reprieve, a quiet before the storm, the last of the calm.
I think a year from now, things will be livelier around the 'hood.